Ron Merk wrote the following introduction, titled My Colleague, Teacher and Friend—Ken O’Connor:
I was very lucky to meet and spend many years working with Ken O’Connor. He was one of the funniest people I ever met, with a very wry sense of humor and a great command of language. What I remember about the first time we met was the calendar on his desk. It was one of those daily calendars by which one learns a new vocabulary word every day of the year.
Ken had a big studio in his home on South Griffith Park Drive in Burbank, with cabinets full of supplies, reference material, and some amazing pieces of animation history, including the layouts for one of the songs in Pinocchio, and the model that he built for Walt Disney of his idea for Cinderella’s coach, one of which was followed very closely in the actual film.
A business partner of mine, the late Ridge Blackwell, who had worked with Ken at Disney Educational Films, introduced us. I had this idea of creating an animated film very much along the lines of Fantasia with segments for the film coming from important animation directors from around the world. It was 1987.
[...]
